The 32nd Lake Tahoe Autumn Food and Wine Festival will be at Northstar on Sept. 8-10.
There will be more than 19 unique festival events, from yoga and wine tasting to outdoor movies to hands-on cooking demonstrations with celebrity chefs.
Sessions can be experienced in a la carte fashion or go all three days.
For details and to purchase tickets, go online.
By Zlati Meyer, USA Today
Following the news that Amazon.com’s acquisition of Whole Foods Market received FTC approval, Amazon announced that it is striving to make Whole Foods more affordable for the average consumer.
Amazon, which is acquiring the organic-heavy supermarket chain for $13.7 billion, announced that starting Monday, the day the deal closes, it will cut prices on a range of various staples.
They will include Whole Trade bananas; organic large brown eggs, avocados, baby kale, baby lettuce and Gala and Fuji apples; “animal-welfare-rated” 85 percent lean ground beef; organic “responsibly-farmed” salmon and tilapia; creamy and crunchy almond butter; organic rotisserie chicken and its generic organic butter.
By Moonshine Ink
Alice Waters is a pioneer — in the truest sense of the word — for the local, organic food movement. Most passionately, Waters has been an advocate for free, locally-sourced meals in our school systems.
She got her start in Berkeley when she opened Chez Panisse, one of the first restaurants in the country to consciously source its ingredients. Since then she has been a chef, restaurateur, activist, and author.
We talked to Waters about eating locally in Tahoe, suggestions for combating the Tahoe housing crisis, specifically in regard to housing kitchen staff, and her opinion on fad eating trends.
Garlic gardening — that will be the topic of a talk at the South Lake Tahoe Library on Sept. 30 at 1pm.
This is for anyone who has ever considered growing garlic in a garden in Tahoe.
UCCE Master Gardeners of Lake Tahoe is putting on this free workshop to show how garlic can be grown at the lake. Participants will receive instruction on cultivation techniques, and history/background on the plant.
Everyone will leave with free garlic for their gardens.
By Kathryn Reed
Plenty of people would say cantaloupe is perfect just as it is. I don’t disagree.
However, that did not stop me from trying something besides cutting it in wedges or tossing cubes into a fruit salad.
I’ve had barbecued peaches before, but this was a first for cantaloupe. The warmth of it reminded me of when I lived in the Central Valley and colleagues would bring cantaloupe in fresh from the fields. It was warm – naturally – from the sun. Oh, my, that was the sweetest, best most mouth-watering cantaloupe I’ve ever had.
I’m not saying cooking cantaloupe is the same. It just triggered a wonderful memory I had forgotten.
I remember my dad having vanilla ice cream with cantaloupe. I just shook my head. Not so anymore
There are lots of choices here – just barbecue the cantaloupe, barbecue with the sauce, blueberries are totally optional, as is the ice cream.
Barbecued Cantaloupe
1 cantaloupe, cut into wedges
¼ C butter
½ C honey
1/3 C mint, chopped
Oil
Blueberries, optional
Vanilla ice cream, optional
Melt butter, honey and mint over low heat.
Brush grill lightly with oil, heat to medium-low. Baste cantaloupe slices with sauce and then place on grill. Turn when there are char marks. It doesn’t take very long.
Serve by itself or with ice cream and/or blueberries. Drizzle remaining sauce onto individual servings.
By Dave McIntyre, Washington Post
Jan and Michael Gibson are wine lovers who don’t go to wine stores. Instead, they go directly to the wineries, and have the wines shipped to their home in Rockville, Md. They are part of the small but rapidly growing “direct to consumer” sales channel that is chipping away at the traditional post-Prohibition distribution system.
“We travel to California at least once a year to visit wineries,” Jan says. They favor small wineries that sell most or all their production at the tasting room or through their wine clubs, and the couple looks for organic and biodynamic producers. “We have not found a good variety or quality of organic wines available in Maryland,” she says. The Gibsons also visit wineries when they travel in New Mexico or Virginia, but their favorites are from Mendocino and Sonoma counties in California.
More than 5 million cases of wine were shipped by U.S. wineries directly to consumers last year, up 17 percent over 2015, according to an annual study published by Wines & Vines magazine and Ship Compliant, a company that helps wineries navigate the labyrinth of state laws and regulations governing direct shipments. Those shipments totaled $2.3 billion in value, with the average price per bottle at $38.69. And they accounted for 8.6 percent of domestic wine sales by value, not including restaurants. (While Americans purchased $26.9 billion in domestic wines last year, the average price per bottle for all sales was $9.29.)
By Hannah Knowles, Sacramento Bee
A $3.9 million federal grant awarded to the California Department of Food and Agriculture will help the state expand a program that encourages low-income people to shop at farmers markets, state officials announced this week.
In July, the department launched the California Nutrition Incentive Program, or CNIP, which rewards recipients of CalFresh food stamps who buy fruits and vegetables grown in the state by doubling the value of their vouchers when they purchase at 339 farmers markets throughout the state.
The program’s latest infusion of funds, a three-year Food Insecurity Nutrition Incentive grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, builds on several million dollars in private funding and $5 million initially allocated by the state Legislature in 2016 to match federal dollars.
Rangers at Mormon Station State Park in Genoa will be putting on a breakfast Dutch oven cooking demonstration on Aug. 13.
Rangers will be cooking up a breakfast casserole and a bacon bomb, all while explaining the basics of Dutch oven cooking. Guests will learn today’s cast iron techniques, as well as those used by pioneers in the 1850s as they came through the Carson Valley on their way to California.
Samples will be served as long as the food lasts.
The free event is from 11am-12:30pm.
For more info, call Daniel Wassmund at 775.782.2590.
By Kathryn Reed
Sometimes I get a hankering for a sandwich. They just aren’t something I eat very often. And warm ones – at least at home – are almost non-existent.
They might become a more regular thing with this recipe. For vegetarians and vegans, getting enough protein can be an issue. And while so many meat eaters have an aversion to tofu, this marinade might change your beliefs.
The mustard listed really adds a wonderful spiciness. Just use a good quality, even a Dijon would satisfy.
When it comes to grilling the squash and veggies the thickness of both will determine how long it takes to cook and ease of turning them. They can be cut into smaller pieces when it comes time to assemble the sandwich.
Any type of bread will do.
Grilled Veggie Sandwich (4 servings)
1 yellow squash
2 medium zucchini
14 ounces firm tofu
10 ounces spinach
8 ounces mushrooms
2 T cilantro-jalapeno mustard
½ tsp horseradish
1 T lemon juice
5 T-plus olive oil
2 T red wine vinegar
1 T chives
1 T mint
Garlic salt
Bread
Slice squash and zucchini length-wise into several pieces. Pat tofu dry and slice in half vertically. Place in glass dish.
Mix mustard, horseradish, lemon juice, olive oil, vinegar, chives and mint. Cover veggies with mixture and coat both sides.
Place spinach and sliced mushrooms in grill basket.
Over medium heat place the squash and tofu directly on the grill. Cook until there are char marks on both sides.
Place grill basket with spinach and mushroom on grill over medium heat. Coat lightly with olive oil and garlic salt. Stir. It’s done when spinach is wilted.
Warm bread on upper rack of grill.
Use any leftover marinade to spread on bread. Cut the tofu and squash into smaller pieces before layering veggies on bread.
Slow Food Lake Tahoe is offering a tour of edible gardens on Aug. 13 from 9am-2 pm.
This is an opportunity to get ideas for gardens of all shapes and sizes, from a beginner container garden to a high production permaculture greenhouse.
It will be a caravan style tour beginning and ending at the Truckee Demonstration Garden located at the Truckee Regional Park. A variety of Truckee home gardens in Sierra Meadows, Glenshire and Prosser will be visited with light refreshments at each stop.
Tickets may be purchased online. They are $10 for adults and no charge for children. Check in will begin at 8:30 am at the Truckee Demonstration Garden.